Johnny Ludlow Fourth Series Part 77

"Now come, sir," she said, "let us talk comfortable: you won't mind giving me your opinion, I dare say. I have looked out for an opportunity to ask it: you being what you are, sir, and his good friend. Them two--they don't hit it off well together, do they?"

Knowing she must allude to Bevere and his wife, I had no ready answer at hand. Mrs. d.y.k.e took silence for a.s.sent.

"Ah, I see how it is. I thought I must be right; I've thought it for some time. But Lizzie only laughs in my face, when I ask her. There's no happiness between 'em; just the other thing; I told Lizzie so only yesterday. But they can't undo what they have done, and there's nothing left for them, sir, but to make the best of it."

"That's true, Mrs. d.y.k.e. And I think Lizzie might do more towards it than she does. If she would only----"

"Only try to get a bit into his ways and manners and not offend him with hers," put in discerning Mrs. d.y.k.e, when I hesitated, "He is as nice a young gentleman as ever lived, and I believe has the making in him of a good husband. But Lizzie is vulgar and her ways are vulgar; and instead of checking herself and remembering that he is just the opposite, and that naturally it must offend him, she lets herself grow more so day by day. I know what's what, sir, having been used to the ways of gentry when I was a young woman, for I lived cook for some years in a good family."

"Lizzie's ways are so noisy."

"Her ways are noisy and rampagious," a.s.sented Mrs. d.y.k.e, "more particularly when she has been at her drops; and noise puts out a sick man."

"Her drops!" I repeated, involuntarily, the word calling up a latent doubt that lay in my mind.

"When girls that have been in busy employment all day and every day, suddenly settle down to idleness, they sometimes slip into this habit or that habit, not altogether good for themselves, which they might never else have had time to think of," remarked Mrs. d.y.k.e. "I've come in here more than once lately and seen Lizzie drinking hot spirits-and-water in the daytime: I know you must have seen the same, sir, or I'd not mention it--and beer she'll take unlimited."

Of course I had seen it.

"I think she must have learnt it at the counter; drinking never was in our family, and I never knew that it was in her father's," continued Mrs. d.y.k.e. "But some of the young women, serving at these bars, get to like the drink through having the sight and smell of it about 'em all day long."

That was more than likely, but I did not say so, not caring to continue that branch of the subject.

"The marriage was a misfortune, Mrs. d.y.k.e."

"For him I suppose you gentlemen consider it was," she answered. "It will be one for her if he should die: she'd have to go back to work again and she has got out o' the trick of it. Ah! she thought grand things of it at first, naturally, marrying a gentleman! But unequal marriages rarely turn out well in the long run. I knew nothing of it till it was done and over, or I should have advised her against it; my husband's place lay in a different part of London then--Eaton Square way. Better, perhaps, for Lizzie had she gone out to service in the country, like her sister."

"Did she always live in London?"

"Dear, no, sir, nor near it; she lived down in Ess.e.x with her father and mother. But she came up to London on a visit, and fell in love with the public life, through getting to know a young woman who was in it.

Nothing could turn her, once her mind was set upon it; and being sharp and clever, quick at figures, she got taken on at some wine-vaults in the city. After staying there awhile and giving satisfaction, she changed to the refreshment-room at the Bell-and-Clapper. Miss Panken went there soon after, and they grew very intimate. The young girl left, who had been there before her; very pretty she was: I don't know what became of her. At some of the counters they have but one girl; at others, two."

"It is a pity girls should be at them at all--drawing on the young men!

I am speaking generally, Mrs. d.y.k.e."

"It is a pity the young men should be so soft as to be drawn on by them--if you'll excuse my saying it, sir," she returned, quickly. "But there--what would you? Human nature's the same all the world over: Jack and Jill. The young men like to talk to the girls, and the girls like very much to talk to the young men. Of course these barmaids lay themselves out to the best advantage, in the doing of their hair and their white frills, and what not, which is human nature again, sir. Look at a young lady in a drawing-room: don't she set herself off when she is expecting the beaux to call?"

Mrs. d.y.k.e paused for want of breath. Her tongue ran on fast, but it told of good sense.

"The barmaids are but like the young ladies, sir; and the young fellows that congregate there get to admire them, while sipping their drops at the counter; if, as I say, they are soft enough. When the girls get hold of one softer than the rest, why, perhaps one of them gets over him so far as to entrap him to give her his name--just as safe as you hook and land a fish."

"And I suppose it has a different termination sometimes?"

Honest Mrs. d.y.k.e shook her head. "We won't talk about that, sir: I can't deny that it may happen once in a way. Not often, let's hope. The young women, as a rule, are well-conducted and respectable: they mostly know how to take care of themselves."

"I should say Miss Panken does."

Mrs. d.y.k.e's broad face shone with merriment. "Ain't she impudent? Oh yes, sir, Polly Panken can take care of herself, never fear. But it's not a good atmosphere for young girls to be in, you see, sir, these public bars; whether it may be only at a railway counter, or at one of them busy taverns in the town, or at the gay places of amus.e.m.e.nt, the manners and morals of the girls get to be a bit loose, as it were, and they can't help it."

"Or anybody else, I suppose."

"No, sir, not as things are; and it's just a wrong upon them that they should be exposed to it. They'd be safer and quieter in a respectable service, which is the state of life many of 'em were born to--though a few may be superior--and better behaved, too: manners is sure to get a bit corrupted in the public line. But the girls like their liberty; they like the free-and-easy public life and its idleness; they like the flirting and the chaffing and the nonsense that goes on; they like to be dressed up of a day as if they were so many young ladies, their hair done off in bows and curls and frizzes, and their hands in cuffs and lace-edgings; now and then you may see 'em with a ring on. That's a better life, they think, than they'd lead as servants or shop-women, or any of the other callings open to this cla.s.s of young women: and perhaps it is. It's easier, at any rate. I've heard that some quite superior young people are in it, who might be, or were, governesses, and couldn't find employment, poor young ladies, through the market being so overstocked. Ah, it is a hard thing, sir, for a well-brought-up young woman to find lady-like employment nowadays. One thing is certain,"

concluded Mrs. d.y.k.e, "that we shall never have a lack of barmaids in this country until a law is pa.s.sed by the legislature--which, happen, never will be pa.s.sed--to forbid girls serving in these places. There'd be less foolishness going on then, and a deal less drinking."

These were Pitt's ideas over again.

A loud laugh outside, and Lizzie came running in. "Why, Aunt d.y.k.e, are you there!--entertaining Mr. Johnny Ludlow!" she exclaimed, as she threw herself into a chair. "Well, I never. And what _do_ you two think I am going to do to-morrow?"

"Now just you mind your manners, young woman," advised the aunt.

"I am minding them--don't you begin blowing-up," retorted Lizzie, her face br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with good-humour.

"You might have your things stole; you and the girl out together," said Mrs. d.y.k.e.

"There's nothing to steal but chairs and tables. I'm sure I'm much obliged to you both for sitting here to take care of them. You'll never guess what I am going to do," broke off Lizzie, with shrieks of laughter. "I am going to take my old place again at the Bell-and-Clapper, and serve behind the counter for the day: Mabel Falkner wants a holiday. Won't it be fun!"

"Your husband will not let you; he would not like it," I said in my haste, while Mrs. d.y.k.e sat in open-mouthed amazement.

"And I shall put on my old black dress; I've got it yet; and be a regular barmaid again. A lovely costume, that black is!" ironically ran on Lizzie. "Neat and not gaudy, as the devil said when he painted his tail pea-green. You need not look as though you thought I had made acquaintance with him and heard him say it, Mr. Johnny; I only borrowed it from one of Bulwer's novels that I read the other day."

If I did not think that, I thought Madam Lizzie had been making acquaintance this afternoon with something else. "Drops!" as Mrs. d.y.k.e called it.

"There I shall be to-morrow, at the old work, and you can both come and see me at it," said Lizzie. "I'll treat you more civilly, Mr. Johnny, than Polly Panken did."

"But I say that your husband will not allow you to go," I repeated to her.

"Ah, he's in bed," she laughed; "he can't get out of it to stop me."

"You are all on the wrong tack, Lizzie girl," spoke up the aunt, severely. "If you don't mind, it will land you in shoals and quicksands.

How dare you think of running counter to what you know your husband's wishes would be?"

She received this with a louder laugh than ever. "He will not know anything about it, Aunt d.y.k.e. Unless Mr. Johnny Ludlow here should tell him. It would not make any difference to me if he did," she concluded, with candour.

And as I felt sure it would not, I held my tongue.

By degrees, as the days went on, Roger got about again, and when I left London he was back at St. Bartholomew's. Other uncanny things had happened to me during this visit of mine, but not one of them brought with it so heavy a weight as the thought of poor Roger Bevere and his blighted life.

"His health may get all right if he will give up drinking," were the last words Pitt said to me. "He has promised to do so."

The weather was cold and wintry as we began our railway journey. From two to three years have gone on, you must please note, since the time told of above. Mr. Brandon was about to spend the Christmas with his sister, Lady Bevere--who had quitted Hampshire and settled not far from Brighton--and she had sent me an invitation to accompany him.

We took the train at Evesham. It was Friday, and the shortest day in the year; St. Thomas, the twenty-first of December. Some people do not care to begin a journey on a Friday, thinking it bodes ill-luck: I might have thought the same had I foreseen what was to happen before we got home again.

London reached, we met Roger Bevere at the Brighton Station, as agreed upon. He was to travel down with us. I had not seen him since the time of his illness in London, except for an hour once when I was in town upon some business for the Squire. Nothing had transpired to his friends, so far as I knew, of the fatal step he had taken; that was a secret still.

I cannot say I much liked Roger's appearance now, as he sat opposite me in the railway-carriage, leaning against the arm of the comfortably-cushioned seat. His fair, pleasant face was gentle as ever, but the once clear blue eyes no longer looked very clear and did not meet ours freely; his hands shook, his fingers were restless. Mr.